Sunday, March 09, 2008

I really need to invest in a camera mount and turn off the radio next time.

Really nice day in California. Temp is probably 70 outside, no wind... This morning I set out for a drive in my 914 Porsche. Started first, by-passing coffee at a major chain coffee shop and had breakfast at Sactown's best greasy spoon, The Lucky Cafe. Breakfast here is the shit. No one was there which is rare for a Sunday morning like today. Great food!! I had the French Toast and Egg combo, I believe it was the #15. Two cups of coffee.

There was a light chill this morning so I had my leather jacket on. I started heading out south of town down 160 along the river. It was really cool with the sun up midway, the river levee road just flying along. The car has been running great. I have slight squeak in the front brakes before the car really gets warm that is annoying but it ran great. Nice and quick acceleration. Not bad for a 35 year old car. (Born date: 9/8/73)

I got off on Hood Franklin Rd and tore it back over to I-5. I got a lot of waves from bicyclists as I sped by. Once on 5, I headed down to Twin Cities Rd. A problem with a car like this, is when you haven't driven far in months (you'd be an idiot driving a 914 in the rain) is the tires get flat spots from sitting. So at the beginning of the season the front end was a little jumpy. A little scary at 75 mph. I knew they would wear smooth if I kept driving.

I headed down Twin Cities through Galt and then onto 99, finally arriving on Liberty Rd. Once I made the boring, straight, cow pasture laden, trek down Liberty I got to North Camanche Pkwy. Here is where the fun starts:

The oakie driving the camper pulled off so it was me and a windy road along Lake Camanche. I just gunned it, not exceeding 60, but not slowing through the turns too much. The car just hummed along. No squeals, nice braking and handling, smooth as can be acceleration.

The video up top is a section of road with not a whole lot of turns. It was fun revving the engine up but I should have kept the stereo off. I reached into my jacket and pulled out my digital video camera. One handed driving... third gear... going from 40 to 60 mph and revving up to 5 grand. You can kind of hear the motor in the video but there is a lot of background noise. One of the first things I did when I got the car was to remove the rusty HEAVY muffler off the back and modify in a Magna Flow muffler. I even have new flanges on the old 914 headers. The gaskets fit a 53 Buick. It's tucked up underneath pretty good but what I really have is a 2 1/2" exhaust on a muffler that would feel at home on a 289 Mustang engine than a whiny 2.0 914 engine. I had the intakes matched to the headers, installed some Mahle pistons, shaved the fly wheel and then added a MSD ignition to the car. The car goes from 30-60 in a couple of seconds. It takes a little to get going but once you hit the power band... the car is a lot of fun.

I winded my way around the back of Camanche to the south side to my parents house. I had noticed that my horn was not working so I stopped for a pit stop to re-wire the horn at my parents. A simple fix.

After a piece of Angel Food cake and handful of M&M's I head back. Once on 99... the car was smooth even at 75 MPH. The flat spots were gone.